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Email marketing is a popular form of advertising that we usually associate with newsletters or emails with shopping discount codes. Can mailing prove useful when we organize online or hybrid events? Absolutely! So how do you create an email campaign that will effectively increase event registrations? The key will be creating content that would attract interest in the event, and choosing the right technology that will allow us to control the communication process with our audience.
Before we start creating a campaign with an invitation to a hybrid or online event, we need to understand that this will be a little different from a newsletter, a mention in a newsletter or pre-event communication with registered people. A newsletter, as a type of weekly or monthly campaign that we use to maintain constant communication with our customers, is of course a good place for information about our event. However, let's remember that a newsletter usually contains a considerable amount of content - news, links to new publications or information about other events. So let's not count on every newsletter recipient taking the trouble to read it from A to Z in order to find a mention about the event we are organizing.
It is also worth noting the difference between campaigns sent to one's own mailing base (or not), and email communication conducted with people who have already registered for an event. Communication with registered attendees is usually conducted via the event tool or platform where we organize our hybrid or online events. Its purpose is not to encourage participation in the event, but rather to deliver information about the program, speakers and attractions, clarify technical issues related to taking part in the event or simply to remind people about the event.
In this article, we will focus primarily on email campaigns that are not newsletters and that target people who are not registered for the event. A well-prepared and well-planned campaign means a greater chance that many more attendees will show up at your online or hybrid event.
To convince the recipient to register for an event, you must first encourage them to open and then read the content of your email. The Open Rate of an email is determined primarily by the title and the name of the sender. The title must be catchy, intriguing and, most importantly, tailored to your audience. There isn't one recipe for the perfect title. One time a strong call-to-action with an invitation to register will work, other times you will also need to evoke some kind of emotions in the recipient, and at yet another time, a trivia or numerical data will work better. Similarly, there is no single right practice in the context of an email sender name. Certainly, however, if you are sending it on behalf of a company, it is worth considering the option of "humanizing" the message and sending it as a specific person, rather than as a company. After all, we're more likely to open an email from a real person (and even more so if we know or associate them!) than from a corporation or a company (which, in addition, probably generated it with the hands of an unspecified person from the marketing department).
Once we've determined the right name for the sender and the title of the mailing, it's time to focus on the content. Quality content is crucial when we are trying to encourage recipients to register for our hybrid or online event. As a rule, recipients like it when they can relate to some content, such as specific knowledge in their field or specialty, or references to their own experiences. Let's try to identify the needs of our audience and answer them in the content of the campaign, and then cleverly combine this with an invitation to our event. A good example of this would be webinars, during which we or our invited guests would share specific knowledge and know-how with the audience. In the body of the webinar invitation email, let's share with the recipients some of the knowledge we will present during the webinar, and for more, let's invite them to the event. We don't have to share all the knowledge right away - sometimes it's enough to give even a few tips or pieces of advice. By doing so, we manage to capture the attention of the recipient and whet their appetite for more.
Good content is one thing, but without the right technology there is not really much use for it. With emails and email campaigns, the right technology is absolutely essential. Email marketing automation tools allow us to create and edit recipient bases, send different content to different groups within our bases, and monitor the effectiveness of our campaigns. We have the ability to see what percentage of recipients opened an email (Open Rate), or what percentage clicked on a link redirecting them to register for an event (Click-Through Rate / CTR). We can also send another email and target, for example, only those people who did not open the previous one at all.
A good Open Rate of a campaign is usually considered a value between 20 and 30% (of course, this is not a rule). If your email had a lower OR, consider what could have caused it and try to improve the score of your next campaign. Perhaps it was sent at the wrong time or had a dull title?
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